by-nc

Study for 'Apres-Midi Tunisien'

Maker

(Artists)
1884-1937

Title

Study for 'Apres-Midi Tunisien'

Date of Production

(circa) 1922

Medium

watercolour, bodycolour, pen, black ink, graphite on laid paper

Dimensions

Height: 21.6 cm
Width: 20.6 cm

Accession Number

D.1962.GC.16

Mode of Acquisition

Gabrielle Cross, gift, 1962

Credit

The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust)

Copyright

Work in the public domain

Location

Not currently on display

Keywords








Label Text

This is a study for Glyn Philpot’s oil painting L’Après Midi Tunisien (1922). Two men have kicked off their slippers and are lounging in a niche shielded from the sun. An ornate mashrabiyya screen appears behind them here, but not in the finished painting. This discrepancy suggests that Philpot experimented with different visual effects and that he was not simply depicting an observed scene.

Philpot first visited Tunisia in 1920, and then again in the mid-1930s. For artists travelling to North Africa, ideas of the Orient drawn from fiction were as important as reality itself. Texts like Arabian Nights contributed to moulding the artists’ and public’s expectations around the Orient, imagined as a place of decadence and lasciviousness.

Provenance

By descent to the artist's niece, Miss Gabrielle Cross (1910-1997); Gabrielle Cross Gift 1962

Exhibition History

Drawing on Arabian Nights, The Courtauld Gallery, London, 22/02/2023-04/06/2023

Glyn Philpot: Flesh and Spirit, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, 14/05/2022-23/10/2022

Literature

Glyn Philpot 1884-1937. Edwardian Aesthete to Thirties Modernist, National Portrait Gallery, London, 1984
under no. 83 on p. 99

Information on this object may be incomplete and will be updated as research progresses. We are particularly committed to addressing any discriminatory or offensive language and ideas that might be present in our records. To help improve this record, and to enquire about images of The Courtauld Gallery Collection, please email gallery.collectionsonline@courtauld.ac.ukFind out more about using and licensing our images.

____________________________

Buy a print from our collection